Romanian aviator born in Bucharest on July 18, 1892, son of Ioan and Anica Istrate. After Dumitruís
birth, Istrate family moved to Transylvanian, where they originated from, to Vaidacuta village, in what is nowadays Mures county,
Romania.
After the burst of WWI, in 1914, Dumitru Istrate was incorporated as a pilot in the German Airborne
Corp 2 (back then, Transylvania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany allied). While on a mission over Serbia, his
plane was shot down by Serbian artillery. Istrate was found badly wounded inside of his plane by an Austrian patrol. He was
treated in a military hospital in Berlin and than transferred to a hospital in Vienna where he died on May 18, 1915. He is buried in the
Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) in Vienna.

After the war, in 1935, the brother of Dumitru erected a monument in Vaidacuta, commemorating the
local WWI heroes. The name of Dumitru Istrate is listed first on this monument.

ONLINE RESOURCES

Aurelian Simionescu has included a link to the website of the
Oficiul National pentru Cultul Eroilor. This website includes a page on Istrate, written
in Romanian, which offers three photographs, two of which you have seen on this page. In addition, there is a color photograph of the
Cimitirul Central din Viena. (Central Cemetery in Vienna?) You can access that page by clicking on:

You will notice a small British flag near the top-right of the page. If you click on it, you will be presented
with an English language version of the site. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an English version of the Istrate page itself.

Editor's Note:
If you have any more information on this pioneer aviator,
please contact me.
E-mail to Ralph Cooper